An outstanding performance from The Super Nodge against a Forest side who were unbeaten at home this season. Surely there's nothing to moan about anymore, right? Let Duncan Edwards take you through things....

Random Star Performer

Simply has to be the City fan who infiltrated the Forest fans and posed with their version of the Mitchell brothers.

"Phil" was the more animated of the two throughout the match and the amount of times he gave us the wanker sign might just have left him with RSI. However, after a brief chat with our hero he did his best catalogue pose and was roundly applauded by the travelling yellows.

Running him a close second was the steward who managed the situation brilliantly and recognised the humour for what it was. No little Hitlering, just sensibly allowed the good natured exchange to pass and then escorted our hero back to our packed corner.

A bit of understanding and common sense goes a long way.

Moment of the Match

Has to be Dorrans thumping in the second goal. I doubt anyone in the upper tier felt safe as he ran on to a loose ball and let fly. This time, however, evasive action wasn't required as the whole stadium, their keeper included, stood and watched it rocket into the corner.

His celebration matched the elation in the stand, he's a fine footballer, a real ball player and once into the second half he was able to impose himself more on the game. We missed Tettey in the first period but both Howson and Dorrans use the ball better and once we were on top they were excellent. You get the feeling it'll be horses for courses in the midfield, they'll all get a chance.

Biggest positive to take

The response.

Following our two home wins, questions were asked about our ability to manoeuvre through the gears when necessary. We went a long way towards allaying those fears today. It was a good game of football any neutral would have enjoyed but the way we recovered from missing a penalty and conceding just before the break was impressive.

Wes tried his best to make up for missing, Jerome ran his arse into the ground again while the remaining midfielders raised their tempo and their levels. Howson looked a different player restored to the centre and won a huge 50-50, knee-jarring challenge, that seemed to be the catalyst for improvement. We afforded the home side too much space and time during the first half but we pressed high and hard after the break. That challenge by Howson seemed to instill belief we were smaller yet stronger and lifted the crowd too.

All of a sudden Jacob Murphy started to display the quick feet, strength, pace and single mindedness that got him his goal at Blackburn. One particular turn, dribble and shot deserved a goal on ability alone. Brady and Olsson started to link brilliantly, Hoolahan was buzzing and we were first to most loose balls. On paper, we're better than Forest. In the second half especially we actually showed it.

More of the same please.

Weekly whinge

Strikers and signings.

We put some wonderful balls into dangerous areas but they were wasted because CamJam seemed reluctant to gamble or attack them. He had another solid game and remains our best available option but with a bit more confidence or perhaps speed of thought he could have bagged the match ball.

At present, Jerome has to start but where on earth are our signings?

Apparently skint, we've bought Pritchard, Canos and Oliveira yet none of them got a look in. The idea of signing players must be to improve on what you've already got but we have one playing understudy to our talismanic Irishman, one who despite impressive cup and u23 performances can't even make the bench and a new striker we've yet to even see. If we really have spent everything we had on these guys I don't think it's unreasonable to think we might actually see them at some point. If they're literally just squad players then a window considered disappointing will start to look as shit as one with a view of Ipswich.

Atmosphere rating

Forest is always a strange place to go because they've had a spectacular fall from grace. A team that genuinely competed with the big boys as recently as the 90s are a shadow of that era. Plenty of empty seats and they were pretty quiet (apart from Phil, Grant and the plethora of schoolkids obviously practicing their offensive sign language homework). The City fans were excellent, as always. Numbers, noise and just enough numpties. We're a funny lot.

One thing I don't get is the chucking beer round the concourse at half time. Ok, it looks good on YouBook, FaceAche or whatever but out on the terrace that passion would lift the team, the fans and might even quieten the opposition support too. To be fair, these lads give it a good crack outside too but chucking beer around that's £4 a pop? Buy a water instead and give the other £2 to Alex Neil, by 2023 we might be able to buy another forward.

Referee watch

Gave us a pen. Away. Legend. His linesmen were bloody useless though. The times they just stood there like one o'clock half struck when the ball went out of play and leaving the ref to guess. Rubbish.

Summary

9 points in a week, up to second and a better performance.

We've built a very solid platform as the season starts to take shape. Winning when we play ok, holding on when we're not as good as ok and now again winning when we're better than ok.

That's a happy scenario.

There is a lead weight that tethers our rise though. The fact that we created plenty of dangerous situations was positive but our failure to convert some others might feel like a millstone when the likes of Howson and Dorrans don't pop up.

It was an excellent win but on another day Dorrans would be donating his training kit and McGovern's goalkeeper gloves to the poor sod he mullered in the crowd, meaning we'd have left with a hugely frustrating if not disastrous 1-1.

Still, negative hypothesising aside, Dorrans and Howson DID come up with the goods and 3 straight wins is a run of form that should breed confidence and ease some fears.

And finally.....

Please just let Johnny Howson play in the middle. Oh, and did Russell Martin put a foot wrong?